Catholic sector signs up to school funding reforms

By Jewel Topsfield and Daniel Hurst

July 23, 2013 — 11.19am

The federal government has struck a national deal with the Catholic sector on school funding reforms, placing further pressure on the hold-out states to sign up to the deal.

In a boost to the government’s hopes of promoting the scheme, the National Catholic Education Commission said it was confident no school would be worse off and every child would gain ‘‘significant [funding] increases over time’’.

Responding to the sector’s concerns about onerous requirements of the new system, the government has offered $82 million over six years to help state and territory Catholic Education Commissions to implement the reforms.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined with Education Minister Bill Shorten to make the announcement at Aquinas College, a Catholic school in outer eastern Melbourne, on Tuesday afternoon.

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Education Minister Bill Shorten has struck a deal with the Catholic sector on the government's school funding reforms.Credit:Michele Mossop

The Catholic system is expected to receive $1.6 billion of extra funding over the next six years, of which $1 billion comes from the federal government.

The increase from the $1.4 billion initially on offer in April is partly explained by the implementation fund.

Mr Rudd said the extra funding would help Catholic schools implement key aspects of the reforms including teacher performance reviews and increased data collection.

He said the ‘‘historic agreement’’ would benefit almost 700,000 students in 1650 Catholic system schools, and respected the need for the Catholic sector to maintain flexibility in distributing the funding.

‘‘The Rudd government has the utmost respect for the integrity and autonomy of the Catholic education system, which for over 150 years has served some of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia,’’ he said.

Mr Rudd said almost two-thirds of Australian students would benefit from the plan, as a result of the deals done so far.

"But we've still got some who we've got to get across the line," he said.

Mr Shorten defended offering extra money for implementation to the non-government sector but not to the states, arguing those authorities were not as large as state governments.

The National Catholic Education Commission said all state and territory commissions had committed to the Better Schools reforms and would be able to plan for next year.

But two state commissions - in South Australia and Western Australia - would keep trying to iron out outstanding issues.

For example, the SA Catholic sector is seeking to revise the current deal as it ‘‘results in minimal additional funding for several years from 2014’’.

He said the Catholic sector would continue to have flexibility in how it distributed the money - a key concern in negotiations.

“I am pleased that the uncertainty of the past 19 months is now behind us, and that the government has given our Catholic school system assurances of flexibility and autonomy to be able to continue to allocate precious resources where they are most needed and where they will have the greatest impact,’’ Dr White said in a statement.

But opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne questioned the significance of the agreement, saying it was a ‘‘foregone conclusion’’ because legislation that passed Parliament last month automatically included all non-government schools.

The breakthrough comes after agreement was reached with the Independent Schools Council of Australia earlier this month.

ISCA executive director Bill Daniels said at the time that the government had offered independent schools an extra $150 million over six years to implement reforms.

It had also agreed that independent schools with disadvantaged students that had received national partnerships or targeted program funding over the past three years would not lose funding when these programs were cut.

Victoria continues to negotiate with the federal government over the reforms, after the July 14 sign-up deadline was extended.

Victorian Premier Denis Napthine has proposed an additional $10.5 billion funding for the state's schools over the next six years, of which the Victorian government wants the Commonwealth to contribute $7 billion.

Although this appears significantly more than the $4.2 billion in combined funding proposed by the Commonwealth, the Victorian figure includes annual indexation.

Mr Rudd and Mr Shorten will meet with Dr Napthine on Tuesday evening and are hopeful of striking a deal.

Mr Shorten said he wanted to talk through Victoria's issues but did not want Victorian children in government schools missing out on benefits from the reforms.

Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory are also yet to sign onto the funding reforms.

The federal government's changes, formerly known as ''Gonski'', but now rebadged as the Better Schools plan, also involve setting an ideal base level of funding for each student, to be topped up with ''loadings'' targeting disadvantage.

Federal Parliament passed legislation last month to set up the new funding system for government schools in any state that has signed up.

While the law ensures federal funding will flow to all Catholic and private schools schools under the new system, the full benefits to the non-government sector will only flow in states that have signed up.

The Australian Education Union called on the remaining states to sign up, warning that public schools would not receive a single extra Gonski dollar in any state that refused to sign.

“It would be nothing short of a travesty if those leaders chose to entrench disadvantage and inequity by letting the resource gap widen between public and non-government schools by refusing to sign up,” AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said.